AT YOUR SCHOOL

Imagination Stage’s after-school classes focus on cultivating skills that will serve students throughout their lives while providing them with high-quality dramatic play, storytelling, and performance training from professional teaching artists. Our after-school class options in creative drama, acting, musical theatre, and dance can be built to fit your school or community’s interests, scheduling needs, and budget.

The Early Childhood curriculum at Imagination Stage employs a holistic approach in order to nurture the whole child through the arts. Learning for children at this age is experiential, as events and sensory experiences build both the physical pathways in a child’s brain and the child’s social and emotional world. Teaching Artists use stories, songs, movement, and visual arts to engage children in multi-sensory play. This helps to build brain connections, boost the child’s social skills, and expand their creativity. The curriculum also supports the child’s emerging sense of independence and a greater capacity for dramatic play and storytelling.

GRADES K – 12

As students explore the worlds of acting and musical theatre, they grow from dramatic play into the application of more advanced, specialized training. All classes, regardless of age, foster personal growth, teamwork and creativity.
Imagination Stage offers one-hour Theatre Arts classes at your school. These classes can be offered both after school and during school time and they include the following:

Creative Drama: From Kindergarten through grade 3, these theme-based classes use drama, music and movement to promote confidence, self-esteem, and creative expression, while working on skills such as active listening and sharing. Classes use storytelling, books, and songs as a means to explore characters through structured, creative, and fun activities. Classes Include: Create a Story, Create a Character, Under the Sea, Pirates and Mermaids, and Mystery Theatre.

Acting: Beginning at grade 4, students transition to Acting Technique: the actor’s process of creating three-dimensional characters and truthful actions for the stage. Classes utilize theatre games, improvisation activities, and scene work to develop characterization and script analysis. Teen actors in grades 6-12 are ready to hone the core concepts of acting: from script analysis to performance skill building. As the acting student matures in her/his performance skills, they are encouraged to delve more analytically and emotionally into concepts such as interplay, spontaneity, and transitions. Classes include: Fundamentals of Acting, Improvisation, Acting: Scene Study, No Fear Shakespeare.

Musical Theatre: Students begin by developing their understanding of musical theatre concepts and musicianship skills including melody, rhythm, and ear training. Students learn to communicate through song and train in basic movement while identifying musical elements within the context of a story. By high school, students are working with a solid foundation in music theory and acting technique and are learning to create sustainable characters and make motivated choices on stage. Classes include: Sing Disney, Musical Theatre Songbook, and FUNdamentals of Musical Theatre.

IN-SCHOOL RESIDENCIES

Imagination Stage’s Teaching Artists use theatre arts and the curriculum in your classroom to help enhance student learning during their school day over a set number of weeks. Throughout the sessions of the residency (45 min – 1-hour sessions), the Teaching Artists work with students to fully explore a selected academic subject using drama, music, movement and visual arts.

Imagination Stage Teaching Artists can build a residency tailored to your school from the guidelines set forth in the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and the College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards (CCR).

SATELLITE PROGRAMS STAFF

DANIELLE MATHERS

School Partnerships Manager

Danielle Mathers is the School Partnerships Manager at Imagination Stage. She is an arts educator with over five years of experience teaching, managing and directing programs, and creating performing arts experiences for young people. Danielle recently moved to the DC area from New York. While living in NY, Danielle worked as Program Director and as a teaching artist for children ages 3-18 with Broadway Workshop for six years. She also served as the Artistic Associate at NYC Children’s Theatre. Danielle is also passionate about arts management and was a Research Assistant for Dr. Tobie Stein during the writing of her book Leadership in The Performing Arts. At Imagination Stage, Danielle creates and manages many arts integration residency programs and also organizes after school arts enrichment opportunities in schools across Maryland and DC. She holds a MA from Brooklyn College and a BA in Theatre and Music from Muhlenberg College.